Peace

Nothing deep and meaningful, just chillin' with my favourite colour!


I decided that I might just do the Art Journal challenges at Blue Bazaar.

Here's a close-up so that you can see the pretty sparkles of the Glimmer Mist.

A Layout for Fran

Here's the whole page. Hope you like it, Fran. :)


I had another heap of fun doing this layout. I find it really satisfying to use up rub-ons that once I thought I would never use. And these Basic Grey Rub-ons went on beautifully. I used pages from an old book by Ethel M. Dell called The Top Of The World and the chapter I used was called A New Era. Just thought you should know that :) I can't remember what cardstock I used (I'm pretty sure it is not Basic Grey).

The words are part of the lyrics to "More Power to Ya" by Petra.

And it seems I am into swathes at the moment - considering my last page and this one.

Sneak Peek

There's something very special about your best friend's children being your friends as well - a blessing that comes with getting older :)

Here is a sneak peek of a layout I made at the request of Elizabeth, for Fran - to go in Fran's album of friends and family to take with her and treasure as she moves into a new era of her life.



More soon.

Birthday Boy

Just a little shout out for a boy who has turned 6 years old. Happy Birthday Declan!



These are the best of a bad bunch of photos. I don't know what was wrong with me. It could've been that I had my phat lens on and couldn't get back far enough in the kitchen and was precariously leant back and couldn't hold still!!!

Creative Therapy

Creative therapy is what I have been doing and I have been inspired by Creative Therapy. This is the first time I have used one of their catalysts.

Catalyst Forty-Four: What’s something about the way you live your life that doesn’t align with who you are (or wish you were)?

So, I peeled my hand off the mouse and dragged my body a.w.a.y from the computer and lugged it over to my art room. I had to do it. I had to do some art. This was last night. I did have to make a couple of trips back to the 'puter to print a photo and look up the catalyst - again - which I could not remember for the life of me!

Anyway... The result is this...



So, what's it about? Not telling! Suffice it to say that I need to align myself to those things that I say are important to me.

I was inspired by this by Danielle Quarmby, this by Sarah Gladman which I found on Aussie Scrapjack, the 18 Years layout in this post by Dina Wakley, and this which, as far as I can tell, is Tamar Bostock's rendition for Emily Falconbridge's 52Q.

Funny how the background page from my Art Journal that I felt most like using was pink. I had great fun using up more of my rub-ons. There are rub-ons and there are rub-ons. The Prima Watercolor Fantasy rub-ons went on like butter - mmmmmm! In fact Prima featured quite a bit on this page - love their flowers and also their crystals. I also used Fancy Pants rub-ons (also like butter) and Basic Grey rub-ons which were NOT like butter (unless it is the refrigerated butter that one tries to spread on fresh bread.) And I used KAISERscrapbook Rhinestones (which need replenishing) and some pearls, and some sequins. Is that all?

The font for 'align' is fontdinerdotcom. I can't remember where I got it from but it was free. It is one of my favourite fonts. I like to give a hand touch by tracing the print onto the page and then going over it with pen.

Round and Round the Garden

 

Well this was an experiment - I just posted the picture straight from Picasa. 'tworked.

So this is a collage of some of the nice things that can be seen in my garden at the moment.

That's all for now.
:D

The Best of 2008

I was looking through my scrapbooking layouts this arvo to see if I could pick just a few of my favourites - it's not that easy really so I am going to skip showing you my faves. But, while I was looking I came across my circle journal layouts that I did yonks ago at The Boxx and I am pretty sure that I have never shown them on my blog. So here they are.

Today I...

When I Was a Teenager I Wish I Knew...

Scrapbooking Technique

Favourite Holiday Destination

Favourite Movie

What's in a Name?

Beautiful Is...

So, what is a circle journal?

Normally, in scrapbooking, a circle journal is a themed album that is passed around a group of people, and each person creates a layout in the album before passing it on to the next person. For this album though, we had a co-ordinator. We were told the themes of all the albums and we did a layout for each theme and sent them to the co-ordinator, who then sent all the layouts from each theme to the person who chose that theme. Do you get it?

The hardest thing with doing this journal, with a group of people that I did not know at all, was choosing a theme. After looking through long lists of topics I settled on What's in a Name? and did my name, of course! I must've been tired when I did the journalling cos there were heaps of mistakes - so I edited it straight onto the layout. I quite liked the effect so left it that way.

Hopefully you can read the journalling when you click on each photo. :)

Sensitive

I just spent the normal amount of time one would spend on a hearty blog post and with one click of the publish post button the whole lot was gone. That has never happened to me before and I am NOT HAPPY JAN!

So, you know how it is when you have to write it all over again - it's just not the same. So I'm not going to.

Here is my Art Journal page I did to concrete a visual reminder of my word for the year.


I was inspired by Kate Mason, Vivian Bonder and prolly a whole lot of other people too. My reverse garbage box had a boost over Christmas. I especially like the tag from DH's jeans, seen here with a piece from a New Testament that I just could not throw away. Part of the verse says "walk in the Spirit." I also took a page out of Peg's book, so to speak, and waxed creative with my alphabet stickers.

One Word

My word for last year was thankful.

Philippians 4:5-7 (New International Version)
Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

In the ups and downs of 2008 there was much for which to be thankful and, generally, I was. Oh, it is easy to be thankful when everything is going my way. When everything is beautiful and good and pleasant and sweet. But being thankful when things are not going my way - that's the hard one. I am still learning to trust God in every circumstance of my life and thank Him for His goodness, grace and mercy.

Okay. On to my word for 2009.

Sensitive


Firstly, I want to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit - to be led by the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:16-26) and have the mind of Christ (I Corinthians 2:6-16).
Flowing from that, I want to be sensitive to others (Philippians 2:1-11) Sensitive to their needs - emotionally, physically, spiritually.

I'll work on these thoughts and develop them for a while. It's interesting, because I am already VERY sensitive to so many things - chemicals, smells, sounds, tactile things. I want to develop a spiritual sensitivity that is equal to my physical and emotional sensitivity. I realise that this could be a painful thing, but here goes...

This Boy...

Christmas is sandwiched between two birthdays at our place. That's not a bad thing.

DH would be happy to do what Declan suggested and not have any more birthdays until he's 99!!! He was outta town for his birthday so we gave him his presents a few days early so that he could enjoy them while he was away.

But it's a little different for Malachi - at this stage of his life he would be happy to have 99 more birthdays, for sure. Mal's 8th birthday was a quiet day. Most of the family visitors were either gone or gone out and Mal had fun building his LEGO Creative 4993 Cool Convertible quietly by himself - clever little man!

A birthday is not a birthday without a birthday cake and this birthday was to be a birthday so we had birthday cake - a simple gluten-free buttercake from one of our favourite sources for failsafe recipes - Fed Up by Sue Dengate. We forgot to break out the bon bons for our Christmas celebration (not the first time) so we made a bon bonny birthday dinner along with the hats, jokes and trinkets.